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Article: The Quest for Origins. Who first discovered and settled New Zealand and the Pacific Islands?(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Oceania
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 University of Sydney. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Quest for Origins. Who first discovered and settled New Zealand and the Pacific Islands? By K. R. Howe. Auckland: Penguin Books (NZ), 2003. Pp. 235. Price: NZ$29.95.
Howe is one of New Zealand's leading historians. He describes his book as 'a history of ideas and of their contexts' (p. 11), written in the local context of widely publicised claims that pre-Polynesian civilisations permeate the Pacific. His intent is wide-ranging, for a public rather than scholarly audience.
Howe starts by discussing how strongly concepts vital to long-term European prehistory have been derived from observations by early European explorers of the Pacific. But because ...